Letter 3

This letter was written around 323 YBCE, found in the same journal as the previous letter. Within it, Tacitus recalls the years of when his and Lady Julia’s class was introduced to their combat pedagogue, Drusus Hibernius Claudia. Exetian boys are given proper combat and military training when they turn 13, so as to prepare them for their high-demand military that they joined between the ages of 15-18. Julia was the first female to be a part of this curriculum. It is important to note that Anaxagoras’ class was not an average cohort of students: a good selection of them were young geniuses, such as Tacitus, Julia, and others mentioned. Thus, some of Anaxagoras’s class was given what was called Century Disciplina, or the equivalent of what we would know as Knight Training. Knights, known in the time of the Empire as Centurions, were officers that commanded a cohort or cohorts of legionnaires (squires). On top of physical training, training of the mind is what Tacitus, Julia, and several key others were provided by Drusus.

- E. Celestina

It was after all of our thirteenth birthdays that our schooling in the Pedagogue Gardens shifted. Though we still attended Anaxagoras’s enlightening pontifications, for three days a week we were brought to the fields that, early on, we would watch boys one, two or three years older than ourselves training amongst each other with wooden gladii. Thus we were now all teenagers, so combat practice for the legion would begin. Anaxagoras was not a fighter, more so a scholar of the mind, so the Principes delegated our military schooling with one of the finest Centurions in Exetia. I recall sitting amongst the grasses with my young cohort, watching as Anaxagoras stepped to the side to formally introduce a man in full plated armor with a plume of black horsehair upon his helmet. He bowed, an action that I later learned he would not have done if it not for Augusta’s presence, then introduced himself as Drusus Hibernius Claudia, a Centurion Legati(1) who was taking his mandatory one-year break that all men receive on their twenty-fifth birthday to train us. He declared there would be one curriculum for thirty-five(2) of the class, but for six of us: Augusta, myself, Marcus, Cassian, Tiberius and Hadrian, we would be placed in the Century Disciplina. I recall these next two years, aside from the war with the King of Chaos, to be the most difficult of my life. The six-day week was separated for the six of us thusly: one with Anaxagoras’ lecture, two of Legionnaire Disciplina(3), one of Anaxagoras’ lecture, one of Century Disciplina, and one day of rest.

Legionnaire Disciplina was, for the first year, simply to awaken the Path Power within us, for accessing the strength given to us by the gods would allow us to perform feats beyond ordinary men. For one training purpose, Drusus dressed us in wicker armor that weighed twenty or thirty kilograms and forced us to march up and down the staircases and corridors of the Pedagogue gardens, until we could feel our sweat drench our tunica and our eyes grow weary with exhaustion, to which he would tell us to march even harder—for the Paths could not be unlocked with half effort. Augusta, though the smallest of us, managed to remain next to myself and Cassian, our conversations shifting from the hardships of our labor to reminders of how I was a “hooligan” for embarrassing her family. It must be reminded that the debate we had was months prior, and her inability to release herself from grudges could only now be understood in retrospect. I would simply shrug off her words and keep marching, though she always annoyingly kept pace and, for some reason, I had a sense at the time that she could have marched further than I. After weeks of marching, the wicker armor grew as rudimentary to carry as the clothes on our back, so he replaced the armors with even thicker, heavier wood of perhaps sixty kilograms, nearly as much as our small bodies were, with the addition of a shield weighing perhaps ten or so. It was at this point that five or six of the boys of our cohort were filtered out, their Path Power insufficient as they were re-integrated into Anaxagoras’ lectures as full-time students aimed toward scholarship rather than military prestige.

It was around the time of our fourteenth birthday that legionary training became combat-focused. We were all issued metal shields, insulated with heat-resistant paints that protected from the frost of Wyverns and the flame of Drakens, though their weight was lighter than the wicker of our previous exercises. Gladii(4) and Spathae(5) were taught in combat training, with Drusus showing us how to march in tight formation and strike with the swords in unity. Our enemy when we were to join would ordinarily be people, yet they were instead monsters with the strength of ten to a hundred men or more, so emphasis was placed on holistic combat rather than individual. That is not to say individual combat was not touched upon. For one or two hours per day, Drusus divided our cohort up into pairs and had us duel one another for perhaps three or four minutes before rotating. Though most of my young comrades were not particularly remarkable in combat, perhaps merely sufficient for Exetian recruitment, three stood out as difficult for me to best in individual combat: Marcus Gnaeus Juno, whose skill was only matched by his superfluous confidence; Cassian Gaius Agrippa, my good comrade, who knew my every move the most intimately and countered just as easily as I countered him; and Augusta, whose ability at the time did not surpass mine, but her strength was one to behold. Every strike of our wooden gladii, I recall, sent splinters of wood flying, and despite my best efforts to guard, she always could shove my blade out of the way by sheer will of her muscle. Still, I found myself victorious perhaps six times out of ten against her, as her technique was unpolished—a fact that Drusus repeatedly called her out for, and once even corporally punished her by dueling her himself. The reprimand was beyond our sight, but Augusta later said he had struck her with the flat end of his blade on her flank, leaving a bruise that she ashamedly hid even as we bathed(6). After that event, she seemed to duel me in particular with anger bordering on frustration. One time, as we encircled one another, she had said: “Why must you always treat me as the filth on the bottom of your sandal?” After countering her thrust, I had replied: “We are all filth to be filtered clean by the swords we wield. Are you saying you see yourself as above the blade you carry?” This remark, amusingly enough, only served to make her strike me harder.

As aforementioned, our military training was not just combat-oriented. For the select few of us, we were taken aside while the rest of our cohort trained under Anaxagoras’ supervision, with Drusus taking his spot in the amphitheater as he instructed Augusta, myself, Marcus, Cassian, Tiberius and Hadrian in Century Disciplina. We were not being nurtured to be mere footsoldiers, but commanders of dozens, hundreds, or, in Augusta’s case, thousands. The first part of Century Disciplina was to understand the enemy itself. Drusus explained that since the days of Artorius, much of Exeter’s enemies were human, yet it has recently shifted in Constantinus’s rule to inhumans. He had handed us all illustrations of foul beasts, some painted white, winged and serpentine, others four-legged, thick and scaled, both with terrible heads that seemed a mix of snake, lizard, and lion. Thus were the Dragonkin(7), a terrible leech upon the continent that, as I write with this pen, is still a plague upon the peoples. We were taught they were split into two halves: the agents of Order, the ones who spewed snow and frost, and the servants of Chaos, those who belched flame and ember. We were taught their biology, growth habits, locations they were spotted, and, most notably, how to hunt and defeat them. Wyverns(8) of Order flew high in the sky, yet their wings could be clipped or burned with arrows of fire, bringing them to the earth where they were vulnerable. Their underbellies were weak as well. Drakens(9) of Chaos were armored and ferocious, yet their scales harbored gaps between them that a well-placed strike of a lance or gladius may prove fatal. All of these details, I recall, Augusta ceaselessly wrote down in a personal journal she had earned for herself, while most of the rest of us only absorbed through observation. I could not have known at the time that her diligent notes would sprout into the ingenuity she would demonstrate later in life.

The next, and most crucial part of the Century Disciplina was to understand oneself and one’s comrades, which could be demonstrated in no better fashion than the Wargames we held. The first type of Wargames set those in the Century to command those solely in the Legionary in equal groups. Thus, the six of us had our own micro-cohort of perhaps five or six, and our task was to understand our command, the strength of our men, and to eliminate the other cohorts in mock combat. “One good strike to the torso, and you are killed,” Drusus had told us. “Anyone who remains standing after such a blow will instead face a blow from me!” Perhaps it is needless to say, but we were very obedient after such a promise. Due to the intentional chaos of six cohorts all facing each other simultaneously, the victor of each Wargame was often random: occasionally the hardworking Hadrian claimed victory, other times the talented Marcus. I must admit I did not often claim the laurel crown in these games, as if it were not Cassian and I taking each other out, it would be Augusta aiming to obliterate my cohort first and face me in direct combat. Separate from the organization of a 1-on-1 duel, I found myself often on the back foot of our mid-battlefield bouts, and on my back at her blade’s edge. It would be a sight that I could never grow accustomed to, and it only pushed me to see the Princeps’ daughter be humbled further.

The second type of Wargames was pitting one entire cohort against another. Drusus brought us to greet another Centurion Legati, Trajan Crassus Clementia, who was instructing his own cohort of perhaps forty-five that would be our enemy in the large fields of the Pedagogue Garden. Drusus instructed us to pick our own mock-Legati, to which it was unanimously decided that Augusta would lead. While many must have thought it was due to her identity as the Princeps’ daughter that we chose her, my reasoning at the time was, perhaps, more mean spirited: if in the event we lost, then my reservations and doubts of her would be proven correct. Thus, she took charge as our commander. Yet, as soon as Drusus and Trajan blew their horns, Augusta had rushed to the front of our formation, ordering Marcus and another boy, Deimos, to guard her own flanks as she rushed straight toward the enemy Legati, Gaius, who I recall standing there with an agape shock to his face that remained even after she had slashed him with the blunt end of her sword, throwing him back into the brush as his formation scattered from the chaos she had created. She ordered Marcus and Deimos to retreat as she battled the cohort alone, and I watched with breathless intrigue as she felled perhaps five or six boys, some with a head of height over herself, before being struck in the back and falling as per the rule. When Marcus returned, he had informed us that Augusta had given him her entire plan and title as Legati, and he, with her commands, overran Gaius’ cohort with the only losses being one or two boys and Augusta herself. I was the one who picked her up after the Wargame was over. I spoke not a word to her as I pulled her to her feet, but she did unto me.

“He should stand to protect the citizens and soldiers he serves, not have them act as his shield.” Her voice was deeper and in a mocking-masculine tone, clearly mimicking what I had told her before. I distinctly remember turning away, not uttering a single word to her. When I looked back, she was still staring at me, a grin upon her face that I never knew how to properly read until much later. Yet, in that moment, I know I felt myself smiling back.

Footnotes:

1. Centurion Legati: A Centurion who oversees other Centurions. The equivalent of our time is a Paladin who oversees Knights.

2. "one curriculum for thirty-five of the class...": In Letter 2, it was mentioned that Julia’s class had 44 total students. At this point, several may have dropped out.

3. Legionnaire Disciplina: Training to become a legionnaire, the equivalent of an ordinary soldier or squire.

4. Gladii: An Exetian short sword, with a blade roughly 60-70 centimeters in length, and double-sided.

5. Spathae: An Exetian longsword, though shorter than our modern-day sense of the longsword, around 80-100 centimeters in blade length.

6. "leaving a bruise that she ashamedly hid even as we bathed.": From this line, it can perhaps be implied that Lady Julia bathed with the rest of the males, and she was likely socially protected due to her identity as the Princeps’ daughter. It was law that any unlawful hand placed upon the Principate family may be tantamount to harsh penalty.

7. Dragonkin: Creatures born from the Dragon Gods, Albion of Order and Ddraig of Chaos.

8. Wyvern: White winged beasts the length of ten men, with two hind legs and a serpentine-like body, who dwell in the Dragonshards, Orkney Mountains, and cold tundra.

9. Draken: Four-legged, non-winged beasts the weight of a hundred men, who spew fire from their maw and dwell in the Hellands, deserts, and volcanic regions.